Friday, April 13, 2012

A collector friend who buys so much retail he should own stock in the store recommended the $20 Championship repack boxes to me. So the last time I was in my local Wal-Mart, there wasn't much of anything else interesting, so I caved and got one.

The Box

When I got it home, I expected the concealed innards to contain packs of ubiquitous junk wax to contrast the newer stuff that was mounted in the windows.

The visible packs

What I found was an even worse abomination than just junk wax. Inside were several "bundles" of junk wax cards that had apparently been created by a previous buyer* who must have returned the box to the store. They were five card groups of 1987 Topps, 1989 Donruss, 1990 Donruss, 1990 Fleer, 1991 Topps, 1991 Upper Deck, and 1995 Fleer sealed in what looks like penny sleeves closed with a shrink wrap heat sealer.

The inside "wrappers"

I thought it was just a cheesy way to repack old cards. My friend says that these boxes are usually all more recent packs, so I knew I got screwed. To make matters worse, I got DUPES in the bundles and a couple of the packs. The OPC Premier pack only had five cards in it.

Dupes from bundles (top row) and real packs (bottom row)

Needless to say, this tarnishes my desire to ever buy any more repacks, especially from that store. I'll have to check if their shrink wrap has logos on it normally. This box was one of only two left along with one football box. No use trying to return it now, since I opened everything. More trade fodder at best....